Lost Futures
by TheShatterpoint
Summary: Mitsubachi knows there are no happy endings for ninjas. But sometimes, he still lets himself dream...


**AN: Takes place during ep. 4**

Beta'ed by Lohis, thank you! ^^

Disclaimer: I don't own Katanagatari

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Lost Futures

There are no happy endings in a life of a ninja.

One would be a fool to think otherwise. Violent lives have violent deaths, that's just the law of the nature. Ninjas are born to die brutally, cruelly, without a warning and in cold blood. They are born to perish fighting, protecting, betraying, killing, fleeing. There are no peaceful passings to the Other Side, no serene final breaths on a deathbed, thinking back on the years of one's youth. Just a crimson flash and blood-freezing screams.

It's just natural.

Mitsubachi might be the youngest member of the Maniwa Ninja Corps Insect Squad, but that doesn't mean he is naïve enough to believe in happy endings. Ninjas don't have happy endings. Ninjas don't grow old. Ninjas don't pass away sleeping, surrounded by children and grandchildren and friends. It just doesn't happen.

Mitsubachi knows he will probably die young and that death will hardly be easy and painless. To some other young man that knowledge might be horrifying, but he has never deluded himself that it could be any other way. There simply is no crying over facts.

He is a proud member of the Insect Squad. He seeks no fame for himself, no glory for his name. He fights and dies for his team and for his clan. He will laugh at Shinigami's face when the time comes. Or maybe the death will come so suddenly he will never see it coming. All the same, he lives a life of a warrior and that life can't promise anything, not even moderate chances to see the next sunrise.

Although he isn't naïve, he sometimes still allows himself a short moment to dream about the days, months, years to come, without the shadow of agonizing death looming over his head. During those rare carefree minutes he lets himself believe his fate isn't carved to a stone, that he is free of probabilities and statistics and logical outcomes.

Like when he is sitting with Chouchou and Kamakiri-san on the cliffs of the Yasuri family's island, preparing for the mission but not yet losing himself to the blood-filled work of a ninja.

Chouchou is rambling about Oshidori-san, dreaming how he'll get married with the love of his life after this task. Kamakiri-san is sitting on a rock, watching them with the slightest of smiles on his face. The sun is shining and for one wonderful moment Mitsubachi lets himself believe they'll accomplish the mission with flying colors and Maniwa Clan will prosper again. That they'll return home, back home to the Maniwa Village and Chouchou will get married with his beautiful fiancé and the wedding will be at sundown, with hundreds of lanterns lighting up the rapidly darkening summer night and Kamakiri-san will smile that nearly imperceptible fond smile of his and everyone will live happily ever after.

For a short while he closes his eyes and sees all this and more, much much more. A future with countless sunrises yet to come and go.

Then the moment is over and Kamakiri-san is walking away, his green mantis-inspired coat swaying slightly in the salty wind.

But Mitsubachi still lets himself hope, although he knows he really shouldn't, he has already had his small moment of dreaming, knowing he should get back to business now and accept his fate. But he's playing games with Chouchou again and his friend is blaming him for cheating _again_ and it's all threatening to bring a small smile on his lips and he finds himself hoping Kamakiri-san will come back safely so he can challenge his mentor to a match of shougi someday.

And then the crystal shatters, and so do his dreams.

Another fate ends like it was foretold.

And now he is standing in the forest, hiding from the oh so innocent eyes of young Yasuri Nanami who has just slaughtered Kamakiri-san. Mitsubachi didn't find the body. That might be a blessing but he still hopes he could have seen his mentor one last time and made sure he would be buried like the mighty "Headhunter" deserved. But there was no body to be found and he now looks at the ongoing fight before him, Chouchou against the beast in a form of Yasuri Nanami.

Looks how the girl pins his friend to the ground and breaks his neck with a nauseating crack.

Violent lives, violent deaths. It's just natural.

It does not feel like something has just died in him because he feels nothing anymore.

He knows what he has to do, what he _will_ do because the Insect Squad will always be together, was it in life or in death. He knows the fate, that has always been shadowing him, is about to knock on his door. And he will open that door and face it and he will avenge the death of two thirds of the squad (his _friends, friends friends)_even if that means he will be buried with them to the soil of this cursed island.

Always together, he thinks and runs his fingers over the pack of cigarettes Chouchou gave to him.

And for one final moment he closes his eyes and lets himself mourn. Mourn all those years that will never come to pass, the wedding that will never be held, the smiles that will never be seen. He grieves all those silly arguments he and Chouchou will never have again and all those quiet conversations over the campfire with Kamakiri-san that will now be gone forever.

He lets a single tear fall for all those lost futures that were crumbled to dust even before any of them was walking on the face of this wretched world.

Just natural.

Like the water in a river that will inevitably end up in a waterfall just behind the next curve.

He opens his eyes, hidden behind the bee headdress and freezes his bleeding heart and flattens his ashen soul. He walks calmly to his fate, to his death, to his freedom because if he has been a prisoner of his own destiny all his life, maybe death will give him another chance.

It's just the life of a ninja, and the epilogue he has always known will conclude his tale.

For there are no happy endings in a life of a warrior.

Just a crimson flash and screams.

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Thank you for reading! Feedback will be, as always, more than appreciated.

**AN:** I watched Katanagatari a few weeks ago and I've been wanting to write a fanfic about the Maniwas ever since. I came up with this story one night (I wrote the whole draft to my notebook in the light of my cellphone) and, well, here it is! Horribly sad, I know, sorry... ^^'' I love Insect Squad and I'll probably write more about them in the future (and about other Maniwas too). And hopefully not as sad story as this.

If there are any mistakes, please let me know and I'll fix them.


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